Storm Gathering (9 page)

Aaron wiped his face with his hand, and his countenance changed nearly immediately. He stepped closer to Mick. “Guilt has nothing to do with it. You need someone on your side who knows the system and how it works. I’ve told everybody I know that you didn’t do this.”

Mick looked away. “What’s
this
? Is she dead? Have they found anything indicating she’s been murdered?”

“No. But she apparently tried to dial 911.”

Mick left the kitchen to pace the living-room floor. “That’s insane. I was there. Passed out. But there. I mean, wouldn’t I know if something bad had happened? This doesn’t make sense.”

“You don’t remember anything?”

“Bits and pieces of conversation. I think she tried to wake me up at one point.” Mick fell into the cushions of his run-down couch. Aaron joined him. “This’ll teach me, eh?”

“What?”

“Not to go home with women. Not to drink. Not to go to bars. See what can happen? You can be charged with murder.”

Aaron stared at him and then looked away. “I’m not going to lecture you.”

“At least I had enough sense to not drive home drunk. That’s what got me in trouble in the first place.”

“So you had her drive you.”

“We’d been having a pretty good conversation as I recall.”

“About?”

Mick’s head throbbed. He needed food. “Things that don’t go right in your life.”

“What kind of woman was she? By all accounts, she’s a responsible citizen.”

“Responsible citizens do frequent bars, you know.”

“Mick, drop the defensiveness. You’re twisting my words.”

Mick sighed. “Fine. She was great. I mean, we just sat and talked. There was this . . . I don’t know . . . this sadness to her.”

“Sadness?”

“Yeah, I noticed it right away. But she didn’t talk about anything specific. Just generalizations, really. Who knows? Maybe her sister ran off with the man of her dreams.”

Aaron hung his head like that was the last thing he wanted to talk about, and Mick wished he hadn’t said it. It was the last thing he wanted to talk about too. Even the mention of it caused walls to rise.

“Jenny told me you came to see her yesterday at the school.”

Mick stood, wanting so badly to leave the room, to leave this mess completely. Was he the biggest fool around? Did he really think he could go over and talk Jenny out of marrying Aaron? Was he losing his mind? or at least his self-control? But maybe it was because he’d never felt like he had with anybody but Jenny. It caused him to swallow his pride and beg. The thought of it made him squeeze his eyes shut, trying to black out the image.

He needed to shift the topic—and fast. “Were you here yesterday?”

“What do you mean?”

“Rummaging around my house?”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“Were you?”

“No!” Aaron said.

“Where were you?” Mick asked. Aaron wasn’t getting out of it that easily. Besides, if it was Aaron it would make that strange, creepy feeling he’d had all night go away. Surely it was just Aaron butting into his business, which wasn’t anything new.

“You want to know where I was last night?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I was at church.”

“They have church on Thursday nights? Don’t you religious people ever take a break?”

“I was there praying for you, Mick. Praying for this situation. Jenny was there too.”

An inexplicable anger seized Mick and he turned from Aaron, clenching his fists. Great, Saint Aaron at it again. That sort of thing was the reason Jenny fell for him in the first place. He clutched his chest, sure his heart was about to beat straight out of his chest cavity. How many times he’d heard Aaron say,
I’m praying for you.
It made him want to puke.

After a moment Aaron said, “I prayed that God would reveal the truth. God knows what happened last night. He’s our best chance at finding the truth. Doesn’t that comfort you in the least?”

“What? That you’re praying for me?” Mick asked, turning to him.

“No. That God knows the truth.”

Mick stared at Aaron. For most of his life, that was not a comforting thought. It meant God knew everything about him, all his dirty deeds, all his wicked motivations. But now, oddly, it did bring a little surge of hope. Even if he couldn’t remember what happened last night, God knew.

“Why did you think I was here last night?” Aaron asked him.

Mick blinked, trying to decide what he should tell Aaron. “No reason.”

“I don’t believe that.” Aaron glanced around the room. “Were you being tailed?”

“Tailed?”

“Yeah. I thought the detectives might want to keep an eye on you.”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Mick said, resisting the urge to look out the front window. “Just seemed like someone had been here last night.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know.” Mick returned to the kitchen for some water. “Some things were out of place. The front door was unlocked.”

“Possibility you could’ve left it unlocked?”

“Sure. Whatever. I’m probably just imagining it.” Mick stared at the picture album he knew had been looked through.

Aaron didn’t seem to have anything else to say. Mick couldn’t read whether he was sympathetic or skeptical.

Aaron then pulled out a card from his pocket and handed to him. “Here.”

“What’s this?”

“Guy’s name is Bill Cassavo. He’s an attorney who goes to our church. I know him and can personally vouch for him.”

“I’m not getting an attorney.” Mick threw the card on the coffee table.

“Fine,” Aaron growled. “Do what you want. You always have.” He headed to the door just as Mick’s phone rang. Aaron said, “By the way, the news broke the story this morning. Had a picture of you, said you were a person of interest. You might want to call Mom and Dad before they get wind of it.”

After the fourth ring, Mick’s answering machine picked up. He wished Aaron would go, but he stood there while Mick’s greeting rolled through. After the beep, he heard, “Mick. Owen Gruber. You’re officially on leave while this . . . thing . . . gets sorted out. Coach wants to talk to you as soon as you can get in, and so do I. I don’t know what’s going on, but you have a lot of explaining to do. I’m assuming you’ll get this message, and they haven’t taken you to jail yet.”

Aaron walked out, shutting the door firmly.

Five seconds later the answering machine flew across the room.

Mick really didn’t care if Owen Gruber thought he was the equivalent of pig slop, but to see the look in Coach Rynde’s eyes made him ill. Gary Rynde was the golden scepter of high school football. He motivated players, made everyone feel important, and took kids who would normally end up in trouble and turned them into people everyone wanted to be around.

Mick supposed Gary also saw him as a project who could use some motivation now and then. On more than one occasion, Gary had talked with Mick about his drinking and the problem it could turn into someday. He’d also lectured him on his immense coaching talent, but said that his lack of focus and his undisciplined nature lent themselves toward unsuccessfulness.

Mick knew all this. But something kept him from changing. It seemed even a motivational speech from the great Gary Rynde couldn’t muster up self-conviction that would stay any longer than a week.

Mick slumped in the chair in Rynde’s office, staring at the carpet, wondering how many minutes or hours it would be before his life would officially be over. Of course, according to Aaron, it was over every day he walked without God. He was not about to concur that Aaron Kline had all the answers in the world. Surely Mick could find some answers himself.

Mick glanced up. Gary was chewing his lip and looking into the air. Owen, on the other hand, was studying Mick with an intense smirk trembling at the edges of his lips, waiting to break into a full-force sneer.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen next?” Gary was studying him.

Mick shook his head. “No idea. I mean, they haven’t arrested me yet, so that tells me there are some other angles being looked at. Thank goodness.” He propped his tired head onto his hand, closing his eyes at the exhausting thoughts and the men’s skeptical expressions.

“You look like you could use a bed to rest that conscience of yours on,” Owen said under his breath.

Gary shot him a look that kept his mouth shut for several more minutes.

“Look, Coach, I didn’t do this,” Mick said. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s as big a mystery to me as it is to anybody what happened to this lady.”

Mick hated the term
this lady
. He’d known Taylor for only a short time, but she wasn’t a total stranger. Unfortunately, much of her identity was lost in the fog of his mind.

Gary glanced at Owen. “Give us a minute, will you?”

Owen flinched at the idea, his nostrils flaring in protest. But without another word, he left the room.

Gary rose and shut the door behind him, then turned and leaned against it, crossing his arms together in the same manner he did at football games while watching one of his many plays unfold on the field.

Mick hung his head. Gary seemed to be everything Mick wanted in his life. In his late forties, he was still a good-looking, athletic guy, with a lot of charm, wit, and character. It takes a special personality to relate to kids who think they own the world, and Gary had it. But today, Gary’s normally sparkling eyes were sterile.

“So, what are you going to do here?” Gary asked, adjusting the sun visor he always wore.

“Do?”

“You have a game plan?”

Mick swallowed. Well, no. But he didn’t really see this as a game that needed a strategy. His perplexed look caused Gary to chuckle a little bit.

Gary strolled over to the large chalkboard he kept in his office, eyeing the Split V-3 play he’d constructed last week. They’d run it a few times in practice, and it seemed to work well. Gary seemed to be a genius at everything he did. But Mick could tell that, though Coach stared at the board, his mind, for once, wasn’t on football.

“So you’re just going to sit there and take it? Is that it?”

He wasn’t sure what Gary was trying to say.

Gary smiled as he went to his desk. He stared at Mick with openly candid eyes. “Mick, you’re not a murderer or a kidnapper or anything of that sort. Gruber would love for you to go down for this. But Gruber is an insecure guy who loves to try and squash anybody that might threaten his little throne of power.”

“I don’t think I’m a threat to Owen.”

“Everybody is a threat to Owen.” Gary scratched his head and said, “Back in 1984 I was coaching at a small middle school out in Plano. We had a winning team two years in a row, and it really picked the school up. But along came Ricardo Martinez.”

“Ricardo Martinez?”

“Two-hundred-pound linebacker with a body that could crush a car.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. At fourteen too. Problem was, Ricardo was no good. But his parents didn’t see it that way. And his parents were psychopaths.”

Mick laughed.

“You know the type, yelling at the Little League games, cursing at small children, threatening to kill their parents. Every time I put Ricardo in, however, he’d mess up and end up costing us a lot. I worked with the kid—or tried to—but at the end of the day, Ric thought he knew it all and was unteachable. He wouldn’t even try to implement what I showed him. So I yanked him from the lineup and refused to start him.”

“Good for you.” Mick smiled.

“Yeah. Until they accused me of sexual abuse.”

“What?”

“Yep. Said it happened in the showers when all the other kids were gone. I got suspended, of course, and they began a criminal investigation on me. I’d been married three weeks when all this went down.”

Mick’s mouth fell open. “I had no idea!”

“That’s because I never talk about it. They were some of the worst days of my life. I didn’t do it, but how can you prove it?”

“So what happened?”

Gary grinned, stretching his arms over his head and clasping them behind his neck. “The only thing I could do. Fight for myself. And so I did.”

“How?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Snuck into the family’s house while they were gone, hid in a living-room closet behind some coats. Waited. When they returned, my wife called and pretended to be a reporter asking questions, which got the topic started once they hung up the phone. And so I tape-recorded them talking about their plan to bring me down. For thirty minutes they gave me everything I wanted. I stayed in the closet all night until they left the next morning. Then I took the tape to the police before they even brought it to the DA. Since it was still at the investigation stage, the tape was used to prove I was set up. It never went to trial.”

“Wow!” Mick shook his head. “That’s an incredible story.”

The fervor of the storytelling faded, though, as Gary leaned forward on his desk. “Mick, I don’t know what happened here, but you better find out. You don’t know who you can trust. Doesn’t seem like anybody is looking out for your best interest. They’re out to find a kidnapped woman and someone they can nail for it. It’s either going to be you or the person who did this.”

“But how do I—?”

Gary held up his hands. “You’re a smart guy. Half the time you don’t tap into what’s up here. But this is a serious thing, and you’re going to have to figure it out fast.”

Mick couldn’t fathom how he might do that.

Gary stood, holding out his hand.

Mick stood too, shaking Gary’s hand firmly. “You’ve always believed in me, Coach.”

Gary smiled. “There’s something holding you back. I hope you find out what it is soon.” Gary walked him to the door a few feet away. “I’m going to try to persuade the board to make this a paid leave. I’m not sure how I’ll fare, but I’ll try.”

Mick hadn’t thought of the financial implications. He tried to keep a steady smile on his face, though. “Thanks.”

“Touch base with me on this, okay? I want to remain updated.”

“I will.” Mick walked down the long hallway that led out to the gymnasium and then the east parking lot. His stomach burned from stress and hunger, so he decided to go to the grocery store.

He’d always lived a bachelor’s life, in need of not much more than milk, orange juice, eggs, and cold cereal. Was there really anything else in life? On occasion, he had been known to go to the trouble of fixing a ham-and-cheese sandwich or a PBJ. And he even liked cucumber sandwiches, especially when his mom used to bring over fresh cucumbers from her garden before their parents moved away.

He hadn’t called their parents yet. He knew Aaron would, anyway. The fact of the matter was he didn’t have a clue how to explain this. He didn’t much understand it himself.

Mick strolled down the cereal aisle, parking in front of the ones that cost twice as much and were loaded with sugar. He picked up a couple of boxes and threw them into his cart.

“I’ve found men are all the same.”

“Do you think that’s fair?”

“Are you trying to tell me you disagree? Here you are, stumbling into my apartment with a woman you hardly know, expecting who knows what.”

“I’m not that kind of person.”

“Then why are you here?”

Mick blinked and the conversation faded. But he saw the scene in his head. They were at Taylor’s apartment, sitting on the couch together. Mick’s head was buzzing, and the store was swirling. He’d been trying to concentrate.

Mick pushed his cart forward.

“You seem genuinely concerned about me.”

“I am concerned. I want to help you, but you haven’t told me what’s wrong.”

“You shouldn’t be here. I’m a moron for bringing you back here. Why do I always make the same mistakes with the same kind of men?”

“What kind of men?”

“The kind that think of women as pawns in a wicked game of power.”

“Sir? Sir. Hello? Fifteen dollars and seventy-two cents.”

Mick stared at the woman in front of him. He was at the checkout and hardly remembered getting there. “I’m . . . I’m sorry. Fifteen and?”

“Seventy-two cents, for the fourth time.”

“Right.” Mick grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket. But when he opened it, his money was gone. “What the—?”

The woman at the cash register had her hands on her hips, as did the mother of four behind him. “Problem?”

“My money’s gone!” Mick’s mind raced. He’d had his wallet with him since Wednesday night, and it had been with him even when he thought somebody might have been in his house.

“Yeah, it just spends itself, doesn’t it?” the cashier said, popping her gum.

His maxed-out credit card was still there, and he didn’t have his checkbook.

“What’s the problem here?” the store manager asked. His chin was tilted up with authority.

“No money,” the woman said.

“My money has been stolen,” Mick explained. “I had at least sixty bucks in here.” He knew he’d started Wednesday night off with eighty or more. But even buying Taylor’s drinks, he wouldn’t have spent more than twenty or twenty-five dollars.

“Sorry to hear that. How are you going to pay for these?” the manager asked, pointing to the sacked groceries.

Mick stuttered. “I-I can’t.”

The matronly woman behind him sighed loudly as one of her kids belched in the other kid’s face, inducing hysterical giggles.

Mick folded his wallet and walked out, the gnawing hunger in his stomach completely gone.

Shep Crawford eyed Captain Fred Bellows, who was standing near the two-way mirror staring openly at the woman in the interrogation room.

“Life has beaten her to a bloody pulp,” Fred remarked.

Mrs. MaryLou Franks looked eighty to her fifty-four years. Kind, hollow eyes stared across the room, and in her face years of pain had etched deep, scarlike wrinkles into her skin. She was nervously tapping her fingers against the metal table, waiting.

“You sent Prescott to interview Sammy Earle?” Fred asked, keeping his eyes forward but raising an eyebrow. “I thought he could handle it.”

“You hardly ever think Randy can handle anything.”

Shep looked through the window. “I think Mrs. Franks will be invaluable. Besides, clues are rarely where you think they should be.”

“So you say. Rumor has it you think Kline isn’t our man.” Fred stepped away from the mirror and to the watercooler. “I don’t like being underhanded, Shep.”

“All that stuff we found in the victim’s apartment seemed a little too convenient to be attached to this Kline guy. I need some extra time. Prescott will give me some good information on Earle, the ex-boyfriend, and then we’ll go from there.”